Extra-Credit Activity: Diurnal Motion, with Pictures

We're nearly at the end of the quarter, and you may have your hands full during Finals week, preparing for the final exam, and perhaps finishing the Module 11 Activities.

I recommend focusing on those items first, and once you get those things done, if you have time and feel like trying to pick up a few more points, you might want to give this Extra-Credit exercise a shot.

Part of why I created this was to do an experiment. Earlier this quarter, I created an Activity that covered a topic I thought was really important, and one which we use our Planetarium to demonstrate in our on-campus classes. When I was preparing for this quarter, which would be my first time teaching online, I saw this as a problem to solve: How to demonstrate the apparent diurnal motion of the sky without the Planetarium?

In a perfect world, I'd have everyone download Stellarium and use it to answer some questions, but I'm not allowed to ask people to download and install software. So, I found some other animations, and wrote the questions, and turned everyone loose on it.

After the fact, I realized the questions just didn't make a lot of sense to most people. Each question had a long, wordy description in it, and it was hard for people to visualize what those words were describing. Fortunately, a student had some time on campus and came to my office hour, and we worked on the questions in a different way: We used pictures instead of the `word salad' I'd originally written. I was really glad to see them able to answer the questions with less of a struggle than before.

So, if you feel like trying for some extra points by being a guinea pi... er, I mean brave and selfless volunteer beta tester for the benefit of future students.. yeah, that's what I mean... you can try this re-worked version of one of our old Module Exercises -- this time with pictures.

You may have already guessed what this is a revised version of - our old "friend", Module 2 Activity Part 1:

Apparent Diurnal Motion: Northern vs. Southern Hemisphere

If I listen closely, I fear that I can hear some of you screaming. I understand, and I can't say as I blame you. I get it. I get why might this might bring back traumatic memories. I understand why you might have your hands pressed to the sides of your head, like that old painting "The Scream" by Edvard Munch.

"No!", I can hear some people saying "Why are you doing this to me, Mr. C? Why are you plunging me back into that dark place?! Why do I have to revisit that dystopian hellscape of an exercise? Why? Y U hate me, Mr. C?!  Nooooooo!!!"

Well, the good news is I don't hate anyone. And I love the diurnal motion. I want everyone - including future classes - to be able to learn about the diurnal motion as much as possible, even in a class like this one that doesn't have access to the Planetarium.

First, here are the pictures that you'll use when you do the Matching questions. You might want to print them out. (This 1-page PDF version of all 8 pictures may be helpful for printing.)

And pay very close attention to the arrowheads! The stars appear to move in the direction the arrows are pointing.

Picture A:

Picture B:

Picture C:

Picture D:

Picture E:

Picture F:

Picture G:

Picture H:

Here's the page that has the video you'll need. You'll want to use the Supplemental Video for Activity 1. (You might even want to mute the sound on it, to avoid all the `word salad', not to mention not having to be subjected to my nasally drone...)